Bela Lugosi

Two nightclub entertainers, Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, parachute into a Pacific jungle island where they meet a sarong-clad island princess and a mad scientist named Dr. Zabor, played by Bela Lugosi in full Dracula regalia. Jealous of Duke's romance with the princess, Zabor decides to use his evolution experiments to turn his rival into a gorilla. Mitchell and Petrillo were a comedy team built to imitate Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and Jerry Lewis reportedly sued to shut the production down. William Beaudine, a veteran of silent comedy, directed with the workmanlike speed that earned him the nickname "One-Shot." The film is a strange collision of horror parody, knockabout slapstick, and stock jungle footage. It entered the public domain because no copyright was ever filed.

Comedy · Horror

A wartime espionage quickie from Monogram, rushed into theaters three months after Pearl Harbor. Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Melcher, a plastic surgeon who has spent years transforming six agents of Japan's Black Dragon Society into doubles of prominent American industrialists — a fifth column planted to sabotage the US war effort. When the infiltrators start turning up dead with ceremonial daggers in their chests, a doctor and a detective try to untangle the conspiracy. Clayton Moore, a few years away from the Lone Ranger, plays a young FBI man. Cheap even by poverty-row standards, but a vivid snapshot of wartime paranoia. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Thriller · Mystery · War

A respected university professor by day secretly runs a criminal ring out of a Bowery soup kitchen by night, disposing of disloyal henchmen by burying them in the cellar, where a junkie doctor keeps them in a zombie-like trance. Bela Lugosi stars in this Monogram quickie. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Horror · Crime

Ed Wood's belated follow-up to Glen or Glenda, and the closest he came to a conventional horror film. Bela Lugosi, in one of his final roles, plays Dr. Eric Vornoff, a mad scientist experimenting with atomic energy in a swamp-side laboratory, attempting to create a race of superhumans with the help of his brutish assistant Lobo (Tor Johnson). When a nosy reporter (Loretta King) investigates, she becomes Vornoff's next subject. The film features Wood's trademark blend of earnest ambition and staggering incompetence: a rubber octopus prop with visible wires, mismatched day-for-night footage, and dialogue that defies logic. Yet Lugosi gives it his all, delivering lines like "Home? I have no home. Hunted... despised... living like an animal!" with genuine pathos. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Sci-Fi

Bela Lugosi's defining role. He plays Count Dracula, a Transylvanian nobleman who leases a ruined abbey in London and begins preying on the city's residents. The film was based on the stage play rather than Stoker's novel directly, which is why the pacing feels theatrical and the dialogue is sparse. Dwight Frye as Renfield is genuinely unhinged. The film was released during the Great Depression and was a box office hit, saving Universal from bankruptcy and launching the Universal monster franchise. Lugosi's interpretation of the Count, with his hypnotic stare and deliberate accent, set the template for every screen Dracula that followed.

Horror · Drama

The East Side Kids return in a sequel of sorts to Spooks Run Wild. When one of their own gets married, the gang tries to fix up a bargain suburban house for the newlyweds but accidentally breaks into the "haunted" house next door, where a mysterious man named Emil, played by Bela Lugosi, slips in and out of secret panels. The boys uncover a Nazi spy ring operating a printing press in the basement. Ava Gardner, on loan from MGM and not yet a major star, appears as the bride. William Beaudine directs with his usual no-nonsense pace. The film is more comedy than horror, with the gang's slapstick carrying most of the running time, and Lugosi used mostly for atmosphere. It entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Horror

Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Charles Kessler, a grief-stricken widower whose wife is believed dead — but is actually alive, hidden away in the cellar by the gardener, driven mad by a car accident. When she wanders the grounds at night, the sight of her through the window sends Kessler into a trance that turns him into an unwitting killer, and his daughter Virginia's fiance takes the fall for the murders. The first of Lugosi's nine Monogram pictures, directed with unusual atmosphere by Joseph H. Lewis, who stages the trances with slow, eerie poise. Clarence Muse gives a dignified turn as the Kesslers' butler Evans. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Horror · Crime · Thriller

A professor perfects a working television system and invites investors to a demonstration, only to die on camera when a mysterious ray intercuts the broadcast. Bela Lugosi plays a dual role — the professor's loyal assistant and a sinister European interloper — in a whodunit where the murder weapon is the new technology itself. Shot in 1935, when television was still laboratory speculation, the film treats live broadcast as exotic enough to carry a thriller. June Collyer plays the professor's daughter caught between suspects. Made by poverty-row outfit Cameo Pictures, it entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Thriller · Sci-Fi

Insurance salesman Albert Tuttle arrives at the Rutherford mansion to sell a policy — only to find his prospect already dead, the heirs locked in by a will that won't be read until the body is entombed, and the corpse itself refusing to stay put. Jack Haley plays the jittery Tuttle, with Bela Lugosi in a red-herring role as the sinister butler, plus secret passages and a disappearing body. A Pine-Thomas production for Paramount, directed by Frank McDonald. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Horror · Mystery

Aliens resurrect the dead to stop humanity from developing a doomsday weapon. Bela Lugosi appears in a few minutes of footage shot before he died; the rest of his scenes are played by a taller man holding a cape over his face. Often cited as the worst film ever made, which is unfair. It is cheap and incoherent, but also earnest and fast-paced. Ed Wood wrote, produced, and directed it in a few days on a tiny budget. The film was not released until two years after it was made, and it was a commercial failure. It found its audience through television reruns in the 1980s.

Sci-Fi · Horror

The East Side Kids, a gang of streetwise New York teenagers, are shipped off to a summer camp in the country and end up stranded in a town where a "monster killer" is said to be on the loose. After one of them is wounded, they take shelter at a hilltop mansion owned by a mysterious caped figure named Nardo, played by Bela Lugosi, and his dwarf assistant. The boys decide Nardo is a zombie master and tie him up. The film was made to pair Monogram's two biggest draws, Lugosi and the East Side Kids, and it leans into the comedy as much as the scares. Leo Gorcey's malapropism-heavy banter with Huntz Hall is the engine of the picture. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Horror

Bela Lugosi at his most committedly absurd: Dr. James Brewster, a scientist whose experiments with ape glands have turned him into a stooped, shaggy ape-man who must harvest human spinal fluid to stay alive. Wallace Ford and Louise Currie play the reporters who stumble onto the story, and Henry Hall wanders through as the creepiest character in the picture — a mysterious man who keeps appearing to comment on events. Shot in a week for Monogram under William Beaudine, it is cheap even by poverty-row standards, but Lugosi plays the degradation with real conviction, and the final twist is genuinely strange. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Horror · Sci-Fi

Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Lorenz, a mad scientist who sends poisoned orchids to brides so they collapse at the altar, then steals their bodies to extract the fluids that keep his aging wife young. A journalist investigating the string of deaths tracks Lorenz to his country home, where she finds a household of coffins, secret passages, and a hunchbacked servant. The Corpse Vanishes is a brisk Monogram B-picture from the stretch of Lugosi's career when he was working the Poverty Row circuit. It is campy and cheap, but Lugosi plays it with complete conviction. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Mystery

Bela Lugosi plays a small-town chemist who breeds a giant bat and trains it to attack anyone wearing a cologne he invented. He uses it to take revenge on the family he believes cheated him, handing out the cologne as a free sample and then sending the bat after each victim. A reporter and his photographer, played by the comic team of Dave O'Brien and Donald Kerr, arrive to investigate the strange deaths. It was the first horror film from Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the poverty-row studios, and Lugosi gives it more gravity than the budget deserves. The film was a surprise hit and PRC made a fortune on it. It entered the public domain and has circulated in countless cut and restored versions ever since.

Horror · Comedy

A wealthy insurance broker receives a death threat from a killer known as the Gorilla and hires three bumbling detectives, the Ritz Brothers, to protect him. On the appointed night, a real escaped gorilla appears at the mansion just as the lights go out, and the detectives scramble through secret panels and hidden catacombs trying to tell the murderer from the ape. Bela Lugosi plays the sinister butler, Peters, in a role originally written for Peter Lorre. Allan Dwan, a veteran director whose career began in the silent era, keeps the slapstick moving at a brisk pace. The film is based on the 1925 stage play by Ralph Spence that was a Broadway hit. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Horror

Bela Lugosi plays the title role in this Monogram poverty-row thriller, a Chinatown crime lord hunting down the twelve legendary coins of Confucius, which are said to grant their possessor control of a Chinese province. Bodies start turning up across the district as Wong's men retrieve the coins one by one, and wisecracking reporter Jason Barton, played by Wallace Ford, follows the trail into Wong's secret headquarters. Lugosi is clearly enjoying himself in a dual role that lets him be both the suave mastermind and his own humble shopkeeper cover. Directed by William Nigh, a Monogram regular who also helmed several of the studio's Mr. Wong detective films. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A patriotic silent war thriller from Fox, notable as Bela Lugosi's American film debut. Edmund Lowe plays a naval officer who feigns disgrace to infiltrate a ring of foreign saboteurs, led by Benedict Hisston (Lugosi), plotting to destroy the Panama Canal and the Atlantic Fleet. Director J. Gordon Edwards emphasized Lugosi's hypnotic eyes in extreme close-up, helping forge the screen persona that would make him Dracula. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

Dr. Marlowe, a mad scientist played by Bela Lugosi, uses voodoo and hypnosis to kidnap young women and transfer their life essence into the body of his dead wife, who has been in a trance for twenty-eight years. His assistants are a zombie-like coachman played by John Carradine and a gas station owner played by George Zucco who lures victims by pretending their cars have broken down. Shot in seven days by William Beaudine for Sam Katzman's Monogram unit, the film was not intended as a comedy, but its absurd plot and loose continuity have made it a favorite of bad-movie audiences. Carradine reportedly considered it the worst film he ever made. It was the last of Lugosi's nine Monogram features. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Horror · Comedy

Often cited as the first feature-length zombie film, White Zombie stars Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre, a Haitian voodoo master who runs a sugar mill worked by the walking dead. A young couple arrives in Haiti to marry at the estate of a wealthy acquaintance, who turns to Legendre to zombify the bride so he can have her for himself. The film predates the flesh-eating zombie of George Romero by decades; its zombies are enslaved laborers, drawn from the same folklore that fascinated 1930s audiences. Lugosi, fresh off Dracula, carries the picture with his hypnotic stare. Made independently for around fifty thousand dollars, it was a surprise hit and the only real success for the Halperin brothers. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Horror